More than a month past the April 15 deadline to complete action on a budget for the 2019 fiscal year, neither the House nor Senate Budget Committee has put forward a bill on the matter.
“The House Budget Committee has not yet introduced a budget resolution for fiscal year 2019, but work is currently underway,” House Budget Committee press secretary Sarah Corley told The Daily Caller. She also told TheDC that a budget could not be proposed without an annual report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), which was delayed this year and released on April 9, as opposed to the February 15 statutory deadline.
The CBO said in January that its report would be delayed, and attributed it to the major tax reform passed in December.
An official from the Senate Budget Committee told TheDC, “Chairman Enzi continues to work on the FY 19 Budget Resolution and aims to mark it up in Committee.” But again, the Senate Budget Committee has not yet proposed an official bill.
It would be an unprecedented move for neither the House nor Senate budget committees to offer a budget plan for the upcoming fiscal year. According to the Committee for a Federal Responsible Budget, since 1976 there has never been a time when neither the House nor Senate proposed and voted on a budget bill for the upcoming year.
“We’ve had years when only one chamber has done it, but this is sort of a rock-bottom moment if that happens,” Patrick Newton, press secretary for the Committee for a Federal Responsible Budget told The Daily Caller. “Now they could still propose one, but there’s no indication at the moment that that’s going to happen.”
“There’s never been a year when both chambers either didn’t bring a budget to the floor or didn’t bring a budget into committee for a vote,” Newton said.
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